Arthur Camins writes frequently on education topics. He is Director of the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. He taught in elementary schools in Brooklyn and worked in administrative roles in New York City, Massachusetts and Kentucky.
In response to an earlier post today, he writes:
It seems that advocates for dismantling democratically governed public education have successfully claimed and distorted the meaning of the terms previously associated with progressive change. Maybe there is no single word that represents what we stand for. So, I think we need to lead with our values and then talk about what improvement solutions will help realize those values. Resonant values might include equity, empathy, community and democracy. I wrote more about reclaiming the initiative for education improvement in two recent posts for the Answer Sheet on the Washington Post.
http://www.arthurcamins.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/How-to-reframe-the-education-reform-debate-The-Washington-Post.pdf
http://www.arthurcamins.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/The-strategic-campaign-needed-to-save-public-education-%E2%80%94-in-nine-steps-The-Washington-Post1.pdf
My wish for the new year is that we continue to make progress in our reclaiming.
Happy New Year!
Arthur
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wonderful and intelligent, and true….BUT:
As Jerry Mander described in’The absence of the sacred’ and as I have witnessed , the world before that GPM (grey propaganda machine…my description of the causal factor ) the values that sustained our society came from family, neighborhood/community, and religion, all of which have been NOT MERELY dismantled, but replaced by the ubiquitous window on the world, television.
Controlled by the people who grasp psychology and the manipulation of the masses, the ‘mad’men’ the values of our citizens are entirely shaped by what they see.
In the nineties I taught middle school students in NYC, and was actually sent by District 2 to the Media Foundation’s seminars, where I was encouraged to direct my students to ask some questions.
* Who is bringing you this program
* What are their values?
* Are these the values that your family holds.
* How do the images and actions you see in a program represent values?
My students began to write, in their weekly letters to me, how the constant violence and aggression was suddenly visible. One girl wrote that her 6 year old brother spoke to her in ways her parents would never approve, after watching tv.
When I taught, as I explained on this blog before, I assigned students in each class, to watch tv for a week, and I gave them a chart. “make a check in the appropriate box, when you see these actions.”
Aggression (pushing, hitting, grabbing, verbal abuse), gunfire, explosions, theft, blood, dead bodies, etc.
I also used a series of videos which Adbusters magazine sent to me, which demonstrated how commercials manipulated behaviors… selling cars an soap , for example by using sexual images. The units and the written responses demonstrated how 13 year old kids could think critically and develop insight into the manipulation of four values.
Has anyone ever spent some mind-numbing time, watching the Disney Channels offering to YA audiences. The behavior of the characters who lie and manipulate friends and classmates will make you cry;(almost no parents appear in these programs unless they are pathetic, dumbed down version.)
In one episode where parents appeared, the father was upset when the mother bought $400 shoes. She assured him that she would return them… after she wore them.”
My astonishment, “0hmgod!” met with my granddaughter’s disapproval: “Why do you constantly say that when you watch this program.”
I agree with Mr Camins, but I am now, 20 years later, convinced that the mad-men have won, because television has become a non-stop barrage of violence, broken only by programs where ‘dumb & dumber’ prevail (honey boo-boo comes to mind)…and if you can stand to watch Tosh-0 for more than a minute, or South Park, you will see how the word ‘comedy’ has been redefined.
It is no wonder that our schools are filled with bullies, and disrespect for people, no merely teachers is ‘trending.”
Add to that the violent video games, and the aggressive, competitive sports and reality shows, and the diet of our future citizens is devoid of the sacred values that made compassion and compromise possible.
One last thing, I 2 home-schooled grandkids in Texas, who have almost no screen time; there is no television except on Friday, (movie night and pizza) unless parents are watching with them. One is 9 and on wis 11 and they are children, like the ones I remember in the forties and fifties.
Sorry to be so pessimistic, but I fear for our civilization.
The preponderence of popular video games with scantily clad females, bloody violence, killing of policemen and obscene disrespect for women, and you have an increased thumbing of noses for long honored societal standards. Our children are ripe for the picking by major forces of moneyed interests and power, let alone questionable philosophies.
I feel I must counter your view that ‘televiision’ & ’50’s Mad Men have overtaken the values of family/neighborhood, community & religion, & I live in the heartland of advertising, metro-NY. My 20-somethings spend very little time in the arena you feel dominates our culture.
When they were still quite young, my mother sent them a video copy of a PBS special warning them of the manipulative ways of marketing, which they took to heart. In short order, cable TV offered PBS & HBO & Nickelodeon alternatives to mindless mainstream kidshows; soon after that they were enveloped in internet opportunities to compete globally in their favorite video games (learning Japanese & French phrases to communicate with their rivals). We had a role as parents; violent games were verboten, & we set up a family network full of educational & creative games
All my kids were musicians, which engaged them of necessity (for bandmates & performances) with the community. Our neighborhood school was (&remains) strong, w/ a 60+-yr tradition of an annual parent-written/ produced musical-play fundraiser, setting an example for the kids. On their own time– when they were not doing hw or practicing for lessons– my kids taught themselves to play video-game themes (many of which incorporated classical themes) on their instruments. (This left little time for TV.) Even before college programs in music-tech, they learned the rudiments of music-production thro online programs. And on vacations, they sketched; they’d all attended our artist-nbr’s studio classes.
As to religion, it was also a nbhd thing; despite their parents; ambivalence we all attended the local Catholic church & did CCD like Scouts) at least thro 6th grade. I count at leasr one child as religious as I am.
My boys organize an annual rock-jam local concert in memory of their deceased elder brother to raise $ for medical research, timed during holidays when locals & former locals are all home; it is a true community event.
If there is one thing that distinguishes my kids from our generation, it is a healthy skepticism for ‘wisdom’ received from national media which you claim has overtaken the culture.. I credit that partly to our parenting, but mostly to their access to digital/ social media.
Your kids were lucky. This is one of those moments when pointing to personal experience does nothing to alter the fact that television has turned this nation, albeit not your sons and the lucky kids whose parents and personal culture managed to avoid the blow that tv dealt to the rest of the nation.
Marshall McLuhan spoke of this effect in “The Media is the Message,”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message
or Vance Packard who predicted it in “The Hidden Persuaders,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/books/review/Greif-t.html?pagewanted=all
and do read Jerry Mander, who in his “Four Arguments Against Television”, and “In The Absence of the Sacred,” made a better argument than ‘look at my kids’.
Why not turn on the tv and watch the ads for food, as an example.
In a nation that is grossly overweight, where police and ordinary citizens sport huge stomachs and fat faces, look at the adds for bigger servings of cheese and fat loaded meals.
And although we can find a plethora of articles about those ‘bad’ teachers, and the need to evaluate them, (Cuomo is still on that rant as I write this) show me the ones that document the debacle in LAUSD that sent the teachers out the door with no recourse to justice.
The entire public education system has been decimated and there is utter silence in the media… but get a good story of a teacher who does something wrong and press-worthy and it is major television news… for days.
And do take a look at the young girls on tv, and on the street, in leggings and tank tops that leave nothing to the imagination, and grown women, in dresses so short they are really tunics… clothes btter suited to their daughters and that make them look ridiculous.
Who is selling them this ‘fashion sense?”
And if you want to see what the ad agency has done to women, look at the hair that most of them sport… straight, and long, flat on their heads… they ALL look alike, no matter what their race or hair type. Go back, before television, and look at the great variety of ways women wore their hair. Sure there were periods where fashionistas dictated hair length and style…but today, everyone looks the same… THAT is television dictating beauty.
I agree all that stuff is awful, & it was especially awful when there was nothing but the big 3 networks on TV, & Time or Newsweek on the nsppr stands. Sorry, my post WAS poorly put together as a response to your point. I think I was just reacting as in, hey, family & community values have not been wiped out yet.
But obviously as Terry C points out, the working poor have little opportunity for family life, great stresses pulling it apart, & kids are left in a vacuum babysat by devices & screens spewing out marketing garbage. But to me, the shame is on how we run our country, not the devices to which the disengaged & disenfranchised are left– with nothing else to do, no fields to run in nor safe places to go to & get together with others.
Everything you say is true.
You see, the Robber Barons of today, are intent on improvising the middle class. Don’t miss this MOyers episode
http://billmoyers.com/2014/12/19/web-extra-new-robber-barons/
Income inequality is their tool, and they need to end the road to opportunity that public education provides.
First they took out the professionals, the teacher’s voice by removing the veteran teachers… gone!
Now, charters are replacing the schools, which inevitably failed as hospitals would if the experienced practitioners disappeared.
Soon the humanities, as we knew it, the history of mankind and the shared knowledge that is a prerequisite for democracy… will be gone. Already Koch and Gates are rewriting what our children (i.e future voting citizens) will know.
Click to access hirsch.pdf
All the conversations here are valuable, but the underlying cause of it all is the conspiracy to end it all is REAL!
I hesitate to even formulate terms for what we stand for, in this extremely partisan era when even such terms as ‘public good’ raise knee-jerk anti-union reactions & even claims of socialism/ communism! I’m thinking the best path forward is simply to delineate & emphasize where tax money is best spent & where it it’s wasted. That gets the emphasis off ideology & onto practical results, where I believe we all come together. I follow comment threads on articles in the heartland (Indiana, Ohio, Michigan), & it seems even ideologues are quick to catch on to scams.
A contributor to Diane Ravitch’s blog says:
“I’m thinking the best path forward is simply to delineate & emphasize where tax money is best spent & where it it’s wasted. That gets the emphasis off ideology & onto practical results, where I believe we all come together.”
This idea of a “non-partisan” solution to how tax dollars are spent has actually become a relatively new and “hot” pitch being made to government agencies by a bunch of philanthropies, investors, wealth and hedge fund managers, along with Goldman Sachs and McKinsey and Co.
The pitch is for a deregulated market for all manner of “government run” social services, including education, where self-appointed financial experts in getting the most bang-for-the buck believe they can also make profits while claiming to deliver more efficient solutions to long-standing problems. The proponents of this profit-centered scheme are seeking federal support for the concept as well as state legislation to help jump-start their version of “social entrepreneurship.”
The prospect of mondering public dollars for private gain is being piloted in several locations. It is promoted by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government along with $200 million in incentives from the Obama administration for “pay for success” programs, also known as “Social Innovation Bonds” These are not really bonds but elaborate contracts rigged so agents of investors (called intermediaries) are in charge of delivering services now funded with federal, state, or local taxes. The agents of the investors and the investors profit from this arrangement and government is off the hook for further funding of the programs–for the life of the pay-for-success contract. Current pilots running for five to 12 years.
The first targets in education are preschool programs. One is in Utah. Another is in Chicago, and another is in the waiting room. These programs recruit kids who are from low-income homes and who meet other qualifications. The preschool programs are intended to eliminate the need for special education by addressing “minor” problems in pre-school and preparing kids to enter Kindergarten with the right stuff to progress through the rest of their education. One program uses scores on the Peabody Picture test to select and exclude kids from the program.
The expected return on investment will be demonstrated as these pre-schoolers enter kindergarden; pass third grade tests in reading, writing, and math; and do better on such tests through grade 6.
Investors earn profits if these kids meet or exceed these contracted milestones and if the results are confirmed by an independent auditor and an independent program evaluator. This pay-for-success scheme means investors can earn at least a 5% return on the money they put up to help the “service providers” scale up–expand their enrollments.
Investors also get a per pupil return on investment for every kid that reaches the milestones in the contract. Those perks are calculated from historical data and other sources of information on the cost of special education services.
The Chicago program will actually prevent kids who should be enrolled in preschool (they are qualified) because they are needed for “a control group.”
In the Chicago preschool program, the pay-for-succes targets would be met with payments for each pupil who, after pre-K, does not get placed in a special education program ($9,100 per pupil), is deemed ready for kindergarten after pre-K ($2,900), and scores above the national average for third-grade reading ($750).
So if you like the idea of paying a bonus to investors seeking a profit from programs that could and should be “for the common good” and welfare of all, including preschool, these entrepeneurs are ready to take the money and credit.
If you lend your support to this kind of outsourcing, complete with contracts marked “do not circulate, proprietary information” and a lot of deal-making sold as virtuous “public private partnerships” you may like this freshly minted solution to cutting social services for some while including others–sources of more profit for those who already have megabucks and want the image of “doing good while doing well.”
Here are some starter links
http://michaelklonsky.blogspot.com/2014/12/rahms-pay-for-success-pre-k-program-who.html
Click to access CLASP-Social-Impact-Bonds-SIBs-March-2014.pdf
http/::www.ssireview.org:blog:entry:debunking_the_myths_behind_social_impact_bond_speculation
file://localhost/Ff from http/::www.whitehouse.gov:omb:factsheet:paying-for-successwhite house
http://newprofit.com/cgi-bin/iowa/about/index.html
file://localhost/Ff from
Intelligent and practical… just one thing… the FIRST ASSAULT was on the teachers. period.
Only when the tenure of the top veterans was broken, and their VOICE silenced, could they step in … because the schools failed when the teacher voice at the bottom, was replaced by the management at the top. MY publisher, Rob Kall, at OEN, promotes the bottom-up vs the top-down, as the change that made everything different.
Is NYC in receivership” The largest system in the nation went down when the top-down administration began that first assault,
https://vimeo.com/4199476
and the second largest (LAUSD) is on its way, staggering under corruption that is mind boggling
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/02/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
At the top, now are the non-educators, the business barons who make the funding decisions which you discuss here. Until the teacher’s voice returns to the discussion, until (as the real national standards jargon puts it) those who KNOW WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE lead the discussions and the decisions, nothing will change.
and
(Do not miss this Moyers piece on the New Gilded age:
http://billmoyers.com/2014/12/19/web-extra-new-robber-barons/
Dear Sp and Fr Freelancer….as a classroom teacher of young children, I only wish our school’s students were as well prepared, attended to and responsibly guided as yours were. My congratulations to you upon your committed and laudible efforts. Our school , however,is urban and Title 1 funded. Incomes are low. We sadly see children abandoned to their own devices as parents are otherwise occupied. Adult-worn earphones replace common conversation. Non-engagement of parent and child during the precious space of time walking to school is the norm. Parents, (often a single) are occupied with work and life and children often fend for themselves. Cell phones remain the thieves of valuable teachable moments missing from family interactions. When at home, these poor souls entrusted to our care have spent countless hours in front of the TV. This sadly, is the babysitter. Video games are equal competitors for our kids’ time. How can we expect morality, character building and responsibility in our society from convenient media and tech devices?
Terry C of course & I certainly didn’t intend to hold my family up as some sort of shining example, my kids are typical of scores I see daily in my community, many of whom have survived tough situations because of the buoying influence of close families & community. I was reacting to what sounded like a blanket aspersion on the younger generation & their devices, & a blaming of media culture for what I see as far deeper issues that rob so many kids of those necessities.
The most heartbreaking detail in your post to me was “Non-engagement of parent and child during the precious space of time walking to school is the norm.” I don’t believe we can blame digital devices for the difficulties that drive people to snatch a bit of distraction from them.
I too teach very young children, mostly lower-income but fortunate enough to have working parents and fairly strong families. Being a ‘special’ I don’t get to see them for long stretches, but I am happy to find (for the last 3 yrs or so) that their nurseries & daycares have taken the bull by the horns & now discourage digital & any sort of screen-time during their young charges’ long school days.
Certainly we can expect no morals to be forthcoming from these electronic gadgets & what they broadcast. They are like mirrors, reflecting (not creating) what we are becoming.
Thanks for sharing these articles. I especially liked the second one. It gives me a glimmer of hope that my actions, no matter how small, do matter. I must lead by example and not give in, in despair. As to the above comments, we all know that we must teach the kids who come to us, not the ones we wish for. This article gives good examples for those of us who are seeking a way to make a difference.